Life, such a wonderful thing with it’s ups and downs… Beautiful and wonderful people, I’ve had a busy couple of days with some traveling between cities and shit, so I’m going to tell you some of the things I’ve been through and then I’ll philosophize a little bit about it.
I made one trip to retrieve my car from Bucharest (I and my girlfriend live in Timișoara) which had remained there for repairs. This was after the car broke down somewhere on the road a few days before Christmas Eve. Yup, we had some serious adventure there 🤣. Or rather not so serious, whatever 😊. It seems that our car had some problems with the onboard computer and it all came crashing down somewhere around the village of Seaca, Romania, around 2 AM on December 23, 2022…
The car simply wouldn’t accelerate anymore… So that night we had to sleep at a motel… When I think back on it now it’s like a funny movie, something like “Home Alone”, only ours was more like “Alone in Seaca Village” 🤣
The next morning, on the December 23 th, 2022, our car was towed and we waited at a car service in the area for it to be repaired. All this time we were as positive as we could be… The car was finally repaired and could travel further but our excitement was short-lived since it did to us the same thing thirty only thirty kilometers from Bucharest… So after some misadventures and driving on the safety lane with 10 km per hour just using the clutch, we finally arrived in Bucharest, disheartened and drained of all our energy.
Then about three months passed, and our dear car changed several service places around Bucharest city. So when we finally got the good news that the car problem was solved for good, we had to make another trip to take our car back to Timisoara. So after those months of waiting when we didn’t have a car anymore, we planned another trip and took a Bla-Bla Car (a car ride through this hitchhiking app) to Bucharest, but you see… here is the beginning of some other adventures…It just so happened that we got a Bla-Bla Car which was actually a cargo van without us knowing in advance that it was a van…
The driver, although a good man, was kinda rude… he smoked in the car, blasted very loud music and the seats that were in front of the van were very stiff so there was no way we were going to sleep during that nine-hour journey between Timisoara and Bucharest, although we were very tired…so yeah… imagine that 🤣. In the end, although the conditions were not ideal, the trip was really funny, and had a lot of “blah blah” small but interesting talk with the driver, hence the name of the hitchhiking app 🤣
Messy, chaotic and very uncomfortable life situation
Obviously that after all of these messy, un-smooth, chaotic, and overall very uncomfortable life situations, I had to philosophize a bit (you already know me) about these events and situations with questions like:
- “How much of our lives do we actually do what we want to do or what is really useful to us, not just run errands and complete routine activities that are necessary for our survival?”
- “How much of our life do we live doing things determined by us, and how much doing things dictated by chance and the situations we go through, situations to which we have to adapt?”
- “How much can we really control our life and its “outcomes”?
- “Is it not, in fact, that too much of our life is at the will of fate and chance and we are just like a straw caught in a swirling sea of life and events that come upon us and are completely outside of our influence?
- “What is the point of learning and developing, if we can influence our reality with so little even with all our knowledge and development?”
- “Will it be so inconceivably hard for life and for the universe to leave me alone, so that nothing unexpected will break down the car, or that there won’t be any people or situations that cause me problems?”
The good in all of this is that, after a few days of deep thinking about these more or less existential questions, that I think many of us share, and after a few other events that took place in my life during these few days, I also arrived to a series of answers that were quite revealing to me.
I’m going to take these questions that I asked myself one by one and I’m going to give each one of them an answer that I felt it resonated with me. Each answer has been distilled after much thought and personal revelation, so here goes:
- How much of our lives do we do what we want or what is really useful to us, not just run errands and perform routine activities necessary for our survival?”
Although we cannot always do what we want at that moment, it is very revealing when we realize how much our choices matter in the actions we take. It is not always necessary or useful for you to make the choice that seems the most common or that seems the most logical or the most generally accepted by those around you.
For example, you can choose to postpone a trip until you feel ok to do it, or you can choose to sell a car that breaks down instead of fixing it. You can change your career and choose another one you actually like. You can have relationships with the people you really want to be with. It’s all about you, and it’s very satisfying to be able to make your own choices, approved only by you, not the ones that may seem the most obvious or the most accepted by society.
Life is always useful to us and we can learn from everything that happens to us, or we can choose to give it a positive connotation and see the good in every situation. We could have chosen to be upset during our trip that there were no sleeping conditions in the car or to talk and joke with the van driver all the way to Bucharest.
It is our choice and our choice only! Realizing that we always have a choice about how we feel gives us a lot of inner strength! - How much of our life do we live doing things determined by us, and how much does doing things dictated by chance and the situations we go through, situations to which we have to adapt?
Although the time in which we do things that are pleasant and/or useful for us in life is almost impossible to calculate exactly, a short summary with scientific information on the daily activities of man shows that almost half of our life we sleep and about the remaining 25% or even more we do activities that are useful to us more than pleasant: eating. work, cooking, cleaning. So we do what we want about 25% of life or even less….?
Could this be…? Is this all there is…? But hey, I really don’t think it’s that bad.
Let’s look at this from another angle here, shall we?
It is in our power to be aware and break this pattern of thinking by realizing that every one of those time percentages from the above data, even the time when we are sleeping, IS STILL a time of our life! You might say no, that is not the actual time we spend living in the actual REALITY, but you know what… reality has this funny thing about…being very hard to define. 😊
Besides, how good do we feel after sleeping, right? Our bodies could not live in a natural homeostasis without sleep, so it is not only the amount of time we sleep in our lives that matters, but also the value it brings to our lives. Life is not only about time and Mr. Einstein really showed us that time is also relative.
Also, once we become aware (and yes there is a lot of inner work to do with ourselves in order for us to get there), we can find joy in every action we take: on the way to work we can observe the nature that surrounds us as if we were seeing it for the first time, we can gratefully enjoy every piece of food we eat without necessarily being something expensive or exotic, within our work or various useful activities we can find smaller or larger joys, so in the end, the time of our life is never wasted.
It’s just up to us to be aware and be able to make the choice to look at anything in our life with gratitude and joy!
It is always necessary to remember that joy is our personal choice, not a state obtained as a result of external conditions that are all favorable to us. That almost never happens, but by becoming aware we can be joyful still, and at any given time! - How much of our life do we live doing things determined by us, and how much does doing things dictated by chance and the situations we go through, situations to which we have to adapt?
How much can we really control our life and its “outcomes”?
Is it not in fact that too much of our life is at the will of fate and chance and we are like a straw caught in a swirling sea of life and events that are unleashed upon us, completely outside our influence?
What is the point of learning and developing, if in fact, so many things that impact our reality are outside our influence, even with all our knowledge and self-development?
I have included several questions here because they all follow the same train of thought.
Well, the thing is that, if we are aware of life and ourselves, the percentage of chance (of randomness) in our life is like a sea that is sometimes calm, sometimes turbulent, but still WE are the ones who steer the ship of our life. This does not mean that we will be able to control everything in our life because indeed many situations will be totally out of our control, but we will learn to fraternize with adversity as the ancient sailors fraternized with the sea and managed to get their ships out of the storm.
Likewise, if we learn how to be aware, understand our emotions, mind our own business and our inner work, not judge other people or burden ourselves with stupid comparisons if we learn to have a good relationship with adversity, relate correctly to the situations we go through, we can control much more of the outcomes of our lives than we realize.
And where it so happens that we can’t control everything, it’s necessary to understand that that’s where our work ends and we have to come to terms with that idea and accept our life as it is in that moment. One of the most valuable life lessons I’ve learned and one of the most beneficial and empowering things I’ve experienced in my life has been acceptance. Accept life as it is, your body as it is, your emotions as they are, and your experiences as they are.
And now for the last question:
Will it be so hard for life and for the universe to leave me alone, without anything unexpected to break down in the car, or without the people and situations that cause me problems?
Answer:
At this question, I just realized how much victimization in my head came into play 🤣. The universe has no obligation to please us, so if something bad happens to us, the most helpful thing we can do at that moment is to accept what is happening to us. Only then can we think about short or long-term solutions. Denial and victimization will only do us more harm, perhaps even worse than the unfortunate event that happens to us.
The natural course of life
Zen philosophy teaches us that life always has ups and downs and this is the natural course of life. You cannot maintain a good mood or a favorable situation for yourself indefinitely. After something very good happens to you, something worse or something unfavorable to you will naturally follow.
Zen teaches us that this is absolutely normal – this is life and it’s absolutely ok to be this way.
Life is in constant motion, in constant change, whether we like to accept it or not.
Moreover, the long-term results of an apparently unfavorable period for you may be different from what you imagined: for example, from a difficult period of your life you learn certain things that will then lead you to a better life or to better understand what you want to do next with your life and that will give you the clarity you needed. It doesn’t mean that if something goes wrong with you now, everything you did until that moment was in vain.
I’m going to tell you a Zen story.
There was once an old Zen farmer. Every day the farmer used his horse to work his fields and keep his farm healthy.
But one day, the horse ran away. All the villagers came and said, “We are very sorry to hear this. This is very bad luck! “
But the farmer replied, “Bad luck. Luck. Who knows?”
The villagers were confused but decided to ignore him. A few weeks passed and then one afternoon, while the farmer was working outside, he looked up and saw his horse running towards him. But the horse was not alone. The horse was coming back to him with a whole herd of horses. So now the farmer had twelve horses to help him work the fields.
All the villagers came to congratulate the farmer and said, “Wow! How lucky you were!”
But the farmer replied, “Good luck. bad luck, who knows?
A few weeks later, the farmer’s son came to visit and help his father work on the farm.
While trying to tame one of the new horses, the farmer’s son fell and broke his leg.
The villagers came to him to show their pity and said: “How terrible! This is very bad luck!”
Just as he did the first time, the farmer replied, “Bad luck, luck, who knows?”
A month later, the farmer’s son was still recovering. He was unable to walk or do any manual labor to help his father around the farm.
An army regiment came marching through town, recruiting every able-bodied youth to join them. When the regiment came to the farmer’s house and saw the young man’s broken leg, they passed him and left him where he lay.
Of course, all the villagers came and said, “Amazing! This is great luck. You’re so lucky!!”
And you know the farmer’s answer by now…
– Bad luck. Luck. Who knows?
Like the story above, our car wreck seemed like a lot of bad luck, but in the end it led to some unexpected positive outcomes in our journey to recover our car, namely:
– A barbecue made with my family in Bucharest that turned out very well, both in terms of taste and atmosphere
– A very revealing talk with my father in which we understood each other better and I feel we got closer to each other
– A beautiful trip where I experienced a lot of new things and met new people
– A very fun time with my son in Bucharest
So we can draw the following conclusion:
When we stop trying to force life to go exactly the way we want it to, we naturally experience a greater sense of fluidity and ease no matter what happens. Just like the Zen farmer.
But to be able to do that, it is necessary that we can first be aware of ourselves and how all our emotions influence our decisions.
But being aware, understanding our emotions, and helping ourselves is not always that easy, it can sometimes be very counterintuitive.
As a life coach, I can help you to:
- Become more aware of yourself
- Realize that your decisions are ultimately yours
- To understand your emotions and how important they are in your life decisions
- Achieve your goals and fulfill your dreams, whether your dream is to change your career, your relationship, or your entire life.
Why would you come to me for life coaching?
- I am a certified life coach with a completed course and diploma and more than four years of experience in the field of personal development
- I am passionate about personal development, truth, and life in general and that is why I give a lot of information and a lot of thought to any topic related to personal development, psychology, spirituality, and philosophy, all to make your personal development process with me go as smoothly as possible!
- I’m an empath, so I will be able to feel what you’re going through which will allow me to relate to you in a very humane and understanding way.
- I have a lot of life experience and have been through multiple relationships, a divorce, many complicated situations, children, and multiple job and career changes, I have gone abroad and then also returned to my country, so I guess we could say that I was not born yesterday 😁
- I am always in a continuous personnel development process in order to ensure for you top quality coaching. Currently, I am studying NLP – that is, Neuro-Linguistic Programming.
- I consider myself a traveler through life who is always learning from life and from those around me, not some guru who knows everything. I will relate to you with equality, understanding, and gentleness, not with superiority and rigidity.
- All clients who have worked with me have been very satisfied with me and my method. Just look at the reviews on my page!
So send me a private message and come with me to a coaching session to see what’s bothering you and how you can improve your life!
The cost of a face-to-face or online life-coaching session is 150 RON! The first session is free!
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You people are wonderful and beautiful and I wish you all a great day!
